Triton

Triton is a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the deep. He is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and Amphitrite, goddess of the sea. He is usually represented as a merman, having the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish.

Like his father, he carried a trident. However, Triton’s special attribute was a twisted conch shell, on which he blew like a trumpet to calm or raise the waves. Its sound was so terrible, that when loudly blown, it put the giants to flight, who imagined it to be the roar of a mighty wild beast (Hyginus, Poet. astronom. ii. 23).

Triton was the father of Pallas and foster parent to the goddess Athena. Pallas was killed by Athena during a fight between the two goddesses. Triton also had a brother named Armanius, Poseidon’s favorite son. [1]. Triton is also sometimes cited as the father of Scylla by Lamia. Triton might be multiplied into a host of Tritones, daimones of the sea.

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Over time, Triton’s name and image came to be associated with a class of merman-like creatures, the Tritones, which could be male or female, and usually formed the escort of marine divinities. Ordinary Tritons were described in detail by the traveller Pausanias (ix. 21).[2] A variety of Triton, the Centauro-Triton or Ichthyocentaur (“Fish-centaur”), was described[citation needed] as having the forefeet of a horse in addition to the human body and the fish tail. It is probable that the idea of Triton owes its origin to the Phoenician fish-deities.

The figure of a Triton is a natural conception for a fountain, as Romans realized when they came to incorporate fountains in gardens in the first century BCE, Sextus Propertius described “The sound of water which splashes all round the basin, when the Triton suddenly pours forth a fountain from his lips.”[3]Bernini‘s Fontana del Tritone (1642-43)is a feature of the Roman cityscape.